Books that had deep impact on your life.

[Nazish]

Well, let us discuss some of those books which had a profound effect on our lives one way or another. A book which effected its readers in a way that helped him to alter; be his way of thinking, or some perspective in life, lessons in a relationship, idea of love and romanticism or any brotherly/sisterly love rekindled !

Reply with

-The Name of the book with author
-In what way did it made you change your views?

[The Comedian]

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

I can't count how many times I've read this book. . . it's a lot. And it's hard for me to say how it "changed" my views; I think that reading that book helped to "shape" my views -- or character really. First it's from Thoreau that I love the simple life. . .even though Thoreau was much better at it than I am. I've always enjoyed the natural world; Thoreau helped me to spiritual-ize it. I also just love his prose style, and there was a time when I thoughtlessly imitated it.

[Clockdeth]

Bluebeard-Kurt Vonnegut, the book is really a fictional biography of a retired world-class painter (the character fictional himself of course), and despite it's mostly narration the story physically takes place within his estate. As he retails his life up to that point he is visited by a woman whom is a renown writer, taking such an interest in his legacy attempts to provoke him from such dormant living, which she then moves in with him.

I was only half way when I stopped, because I had it from a library in a town I just moved from, though I will finish when I can buy a copy of course. What I have read still presented, beyond the plot or events themselves, through Kurt's method the is as if to be made as a portrait in itself, considering it is a lifetime history of a painter. I would highly recommend it merely to understand the description given here, which would be to tell its greatness no matter what the story itself was. For me the time reading was much like to see being conscious as living image.

Ape and Essence-Aldous Huxley. The book's not too long, and the title alone gives minor description. Just read it.

Crime and Punishment-Dostoevsky. (See description for Ape and Essence :smile5: )

[Alexander III]

The Sorrows Of Young Werther

The short novel didn't change any particular views dramatically, except maybe alter my stance towards suicide, but It is such a beautiful and concise novel that reading it always brings comfort to me.

[Nazish]

The Fountainhead by Ayan Rand

One of my friend recommended it to me when I was going through a low self esteem phase. The character of Howard Roark had such a deep impact on me that I, once losing my confidence, started believing one could do anything alone even if the whole world is against him. I was dramatically driven into self belief and attaining the impossible just on my own. I especially remember one line that keeps me going, "A man is an end in himself" :)

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

A few random selections from my formative years that contributed in defining who I am today:

Roger Tory Peterson Field Guides (Birds, reptiles, trees, astronomy, etc)
The Bible
“Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” – William Shirer
"Letters and Papers from Prison"- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
A mammoth National Geographic Atlas
“Just So Stories”- Rudyard Kipling
Boy Scout handbooks and field guides
“Where the Red Fern Grows “- Wilson Rawls
The American Heritage Junior Library
“Toilers of the Sea”-Victor Hugo
“Tale of Two Cities” – Charles Dickens
My “introduction to stamp and coin collecting” books
Time Life series on WW II
“The Call of the Wild”- Jack London
“Gentle Ben”- Walt Morey ...to name a few



Gilliatt

[stlukesguild]

Baudelaire- Les Fleurs du Mal- This was one of those books I discovered on my own... and it was something of an epiphany... opening up the whole world of poetry for me... which is now probably my favored reading genre.

J.L. Borges- Labyrinths- I came around to Borges slowly.. rather like Kafka. He just grew on me a little bit at a time until I was a complete convert. The book opened up many Modernist and Post-Modernist elements that seemed closed at the time.

William Blake- Collected Poems and Prose (illustrated)- Blake absolutely stunned me as a true original. He was (and continues to be) dismissed by some as an eccentric... even a bit crazy... but the more I read of him the more I discovered the method to his madness. Blake simply had the audacity to read and embrace literature no one else was reading and to make art no one else was making: illuminated books in watercolor... profoundly inspired by medieval art.

Hermann Hesse- The Glass Bead Game- Provoked endless questions as to the role and responsibility of the artist and of the audience without offering any simple pat answers.

Max Beckmann: Retrospective- Hey, it's an art book, but this art book probably had more impact upon me as a developing artist than anything else I read... and continues to be regularly by my side.

[Emil Miller]

There have been a number off books that have influenced my thinking but none as significantly as Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham.
This was the book that sent me to Germany to discover that Germans were not only more likeable than the English but they were also more honest. More importantly, it gave me the chance to view England from another standpoint and it was quite a revelation. As Rudyard Kipling wrote 'What do they know of England who only England know.

[LitNetIsGreat]

There have been a number off books that have influenced my thinking but none as significantly as Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham.


This was definitely my favourite book of the year.

[ladderandbucket]

I first read Blood Meridian by Cormac Mccarthy four and a half years ago. I had read novels before, of course, but it was always as an idle distraction. I wouldn't have regarded a book as being any different from a movie.

The truth is that I only picked up Blood Meridian because somebody had told me it was disturbing and I was at that stage in my life when to disturb myself seemed appealing.

Well, the book did disturb me, but not in the way I had expected. Fortunately it didn't turn me into a Nietzsche-quoting advocate of genocide but it did cause me to fall in love with literature and has subsequently opened my eyes to a world of history and philosophy I had never known existed. I had never realised how powerful an effect words could have before I read this book. There are sentences in there which I would read over and over simply because they are so beautiful, although I could not for the life of me understand what they meant.

I have been reading voraciously ever since and now I know that there are many such books which are not easy to understand but become more rewarding the closer you study them and can be as educational as they are entertaining. I didn't go to university and I have never written an essay in my life but now I feel as if I am engaged in a lifelong project to educate myself - the thought of all the great books and learning I have left for me is the great joy of my life - and it is all thanks to this strange, over-stylised western which I only read because I wanted to scare myself.

[TheChilly]

Gravity's Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon.

The one novel where I began to see that literature is not limited to storytelling and symbol, but many, many different aspects, be it history or theme or mood, at least one of those motifs summing up the work entirely. My love for literature deepened as well during my experience with this novel. It's also the first work that I've read from any author that strapped me to a punching bag and mercilessly beat me until I successfully reached the end. And I felt a sigh of relief.

[sithkittie]

Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

It wasn't a dramatic change, but it hit home in a lot of ways and was one of the few novels that has gotten me to the point of tears and wanting to throw the book because of my frustration with the people in it (rather than the author). I still think about a lot of the things in it. They don't teach you reality in history class in grade school when you're starting to form your opinions of the world you live in, and by the time you learn more accurate history in high school and college, I don't know, each time I come across something that breaks the view I had in grade school it makes me pause. Then there's something to be said about surviving. It's just a really thought provoking book for me.

[TacoButt]

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I read it when I was 19 or so (the first time). I am really crusty and old, but I still like to think about the concept of "Quality" as something undefined in itself, but which gives rise to subjects and objects, etc.

I am a musician and composer and I relate what music "means" to pure Quality.

[arrytus]

Hamlet. Dad was a shakespeare buff, and would make me watch the plays/movies as a child. Saw it at 9, then read it soon after. Read it once a month at least for 2 years in highschool [soph and junior years]. Memorized the whole damn thing practically. But I've not read it in 10 years. It made me feel better in my anomy and- at the time- precocity. 'Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I....' I still give that speech sometimes when bitter

[Nickless]

this had some impact on me:

Letters from the Earth by Twain &
The age of reason by Tom Paine
-by rendering me positively sceptical

Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan
-by inspiring me to learn and take distance to what happens around

[country doctor]

well the doc is reading 'walden' right now...others on this thread that the doc enjoyed were 'the fountainhead', 'of human bondage', 'rise and fall of the third reich', 'pale blue dot', 'hamlet' and a few others...

but the one that really made an impact on the doc's life was 'on the road' by kerouac...just led him onto the way of thinking that he developed...

also the book that he's re-read the most...

the doc just picked up 'visions of cody' awhile back and it's amazing how more critical he is of jack's writing in that one, after going five plus years of not reading any of his work...

but the time and place of reading 'on the road' the first time made an impact...